• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Well whats it like?

It would have been nice to have a book that would actually let us play Traveller rather than a construct your universe set.
 
This is not a book for someone who has never played Traveller. I'll go further. This is not a book for someone who's new to roleplaying. This is not a book for someone who's never Refereed a game. This book, at best, is a toolbox of ideas for assembling your own RPG from the bits you like -- if you have a lot of experience with both Traveller and role playing games. If you're looking for a something that you can dig into and start playing with your friends on Saturday night, this is not the product for you. I would suggest Mongoose for that, but buy the pocket edition core rules.

That's a good, honest review and consistent with some other impressions I have read so far.

As a CT ref/player I use only what I need to use and many of the original LBBs don't get used in my campaigns.

I'll go as far as saying that LBBs 1-3 are all I need, but the other LLBs can be useful when I need them.

So, my question is:

Could I use T5 in much the same way? By that I mean is the T5 Core Rules Book complete enough (easy enough to understand) to allow me to do the same as I have been doing with CT LBBs?

Thanks
 
Could I use T5 in much the same way? By that I mean is the T5 Core Rules Book complete enough (easy enough to understand) to allow me to do the same as I have been doing with CT LBBs?
Thanks

From the quote you yourself used above? No

From what I've seen and read on CotI? No

Of course, from personal experience, I have to wait for my "Expedited Shipping" BBB like oh-so-many others.
 
Of course, from personal experience, I have to wait for my "Expedited Shipping" BBB like oh-so-many others.

Marc will be back from vacation next week so the remainder of the Kickstarter packages will start to ship. I'm a non-KS web order case so I guess I will have to wait until June or July (at the earliest) before I can see it for myself.

My hope is that I can take enough out of T5 to be able to switch from CT books 1-3 and get some game time with my kids using T5.

Here's hoping....
 
That's a good, honest review and consistent with some other impressions I have read so far.

As a CT ref/player I use only what I need to use and many of the original LBBs don't get used in my campaigns.

I'll go as far as saying that LBBs 1-3 are all I need, but the other LLBs can be useful when I need them.

So, my question is:

Could I use T5 in much the same way? By that I mean is the T5 Core Rules Book complete enough (easy enough to understand) to allow me to do the same as I have been doing with CT LBBs?

Thanks

Easy enough to understand as a whole - I'd say no.

BUT, (and this is very important)

Whatever your group is very interested in, there is a subsystem in T5 that will bring all the crunchiness they may desire. That is the strength of the monolith.

Every group will find 20% of this that will make them go "How did we live without this?" Every group will have a differing 20%, based on their style of play.

Let me give an example:
Things like QREBS, FLUX, and Gun/Blade/Vehicle/Ship/Thing maker aren't concepts/levels of granularity that my group are interested in.

Our group is going exploring (Or running away from governments trying to kill our characters, depending on how one looks at it.) We like the ships available from CT/MT and we'll run with them (Yeah, those use different design sequences. So what. It is irrelevant for our purposes.)

So pages 420 - 476 (World Design), and to a lesser extent pages 477 - 496 (Trade & Commerce), and the chapter on Starports (304 - 310) will be used.

The Sophont chaper 537 -559 & beastmaker 575 - 587 will be used, heavily.

Everything depends on what what your group wants to do.

P.S. I really, really, really despise the character generation system. In a book with a number of badly thought out ideas, it stands out the most (other than a completely randomized layout and missing index).
 
huh...It's my favorite version of Traveller character generation ever.

That is part of your 20%.

It is just like how Aramis was astounded that many people actually found "Dice Resutls are Random but Understandable" useful.

Every one has found subsystems in this that they really like. As far as a cohesive whole, I think everyone is still at the initial impressions phase.
 
That is part of your 20%.

It is just like how Aramis was astounded that many people actually found "Dice Resutls are Random but Understandable" useful.

Every one has found subsystems in this that they really like. As far as a cohesive whole, I think everyone is still at the initial impressions phase.

wrong. I was one who noted that it is useful.
 
I"m that rare person who liked T4 and the character creation is largely an upgrade on that version. On the other hand I really liked Fusion Fire and Steel and would have liked a revised and patched version of the T4 book with the equations done right.

I was royally pissed off at Marc for the cancellation of the T4 line. They'd made so many promises and a few of the last books were really neat. At the time I swore I'd never buy Traveller again but T5 came along and they were going to have it ready by what was it? June...August? I can't recall and I got all excited and chipped in.

I think it's functionally what I'd want. I suppose Mongoose editions for the setting material probably explain why there's no setting material. There's a lot I'd have done differently, well have done differently, I've designed two sfrpgs of my own as it happens. But I'd run it as is. If it had come by now I'd be running it as it is. I might try running it off the .pdf by printing key pages to hand to players.

Actually, one thing I've thought about the arrangement and format is that it was originally intended for tablets. Back when there were color borders and so on. I know, originally there was no offer of a book. And a few years later when the CD arrived it was in a nice, fancy box that looked really professional. I suspect it wasn't even possible, financially, to print the thing before kickstarter became an option.
 
I hate to say this, but I completely agree with that assessment of both Vector Combat and Weapon vs Armor tables in Classic Traveller.

I admit to never using the Bk2 vector combat system for that reason, but I have used Mayday. Now I prefer Power Projection.

Weapon vs Armor tables made it harder to add new weapons to the game and slowed down combat a little compared to some other combat mechanics.

Yeah, it worked a lot better using the consolidated table on the Judges Guild referee's screen (with only one target number to consider)!
 
huh...It's my favorite version of Traveller character generation ever.

I agree. This my favorite character generation system so far. I think it needs some tuning, though.

Also, I may just be nostalgic but I miss the risk of characters dying during generation. In CT, there was always that chance of not surviving one more term. I guess I could house rule something on the Risk roll.

To the poster who wondered if they could use T5 systems with their existing game: I'd say yes. I was running a Mongoose game prior to getting the T5 beta and the first thing I did when I got the CD was to implement the task system on top of the current game. Character conversion was next and the we adopted the weapons and combat. We never did use T5 starships or vehicles, but I planned to add them in when the full game released.
 
I admit to never using the Bk2 vector combat system for that reason, but I have used Mayday. Now I prefer Power Projection.



Yeah, it worked a lot better using the consolidated table on the Judges Guild referee's screen (with only one target number to consider)!

Snapshot uses a similar table.
 
Me.

That is part of your 20%.

It is just like how Aramis was astounded that many people actually found "Dice Resutls are Random but Understandable" useful.

Every one has found subsystems in this that they really like. As far as a cohesive whole, I think everyone is still at the initial impressions phase.
Actually, I was the astounded one, but only for a little bit. :cool:
 
Back
Top